Provenance

Private collection, France (sale: Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Piasa, 18 March 2005, lot 53, illustrated)

W. M. Brady & Co., New York, 2005

Private collection, New York

Exhibitions

New York, W. M. Brady & Co., Master Drawings, 1520-1890, 24 January–16 February 2006, cat. no. 19, illustrated

Literature

C. Gustin-Gomez, Charles de La Fosse, 1636–1716, catalogue raisonné, Dijon, 2006, (2 vols.), vol. 2, p. 185, cat. no. D. 21, illustrated

Drawn circa 1703

Son of a silversmith, Charles de La Fosse was a pupil of Charles Le Brun (1619-1690), with whom he collaborated in 1655 on the ceiling of the Paris church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, and later, on the decoration of the Hôtel Lambert.  From 1658 to 1663, he studied in Italy, spending more time in Venice than in Rome. A born colorist, La Fosse came under the influence of the Venetian Renaissance masters, then nearly forgotten in the artistic circles of Paris.  La Fosse befriended the leading art theorist of the time, Roger de Piles (1635-1709), whose promotion of Rubens's work and its impact in France exterted a strong influence on the artist.  De Piles defended the coloristic “Rubéniens” artists against the classical, linear “Poussinistes” school upheld by André Félibien (1619-1695). This debate had a lasting effect on French art at the end of the seventeenth century, lingering on until the death of the King Louis XIV in 1715 and the dawn of the Rococo movement.

When La Fosse returned from Italy, he had not yet decided which of the two rival camps he should join.  At that point he was still painting in the style of the Carracci pupil Francesco Albani (1576-1660).  He continued to work for Le Brun in the Salon de Diane and the Salon d’Apollon at Versailles, where Rubens's influence is distinctly detectable.  La Fosse’s style reached maturity, notably his signature use of foreshortened figures, in the cupola of the church of the Assumption, Paris, of 1676. After having worked at the Trianon in Versailles (1687-88), La Fosse received a major commission from the British ambassador to France, Lord Montague, to decorate his

house in London.  Noted at the time as a magnificent ensemble of decoration, Montague House was subsequently destroyed to make way for the British Museum and little remains of La Fosse’s conception since these decorations were never engraved.  He was recalled to Paris to decorate the cupola and spandrels of the Eglise des Invalides, as well as to paint the controversial Resurrection for the apse of the chapel of Versailles.  Close to the foremost collector of the time, Pierre Crozat (1665-1740), La Fosse decorated his Paris hôtel particulier and his château at Montmorency.  It was through Crozat that he met and encouraged the young Watteau.¹

Our trois-crayons drawing is a study for the figure of Saint Anne in one of La Fosse’s largest and most important commissions, La Consécration de la Vierge,²  painted for the high altar of the church of the Convent of the Immaculate Conception on the rue du Bac, Paris, in 1703. Measuring 4,48 x 2,50 meters, the altarpiece was much admired by La Fosse’s contemporaries; Dezallier d’Argenville commented, “c’est un des plus beaux ouvrages de ce fameux artiste”.³ The theme of the picture is the Conception of the Virgin. The Virgin, in the center of the composition, kneels on a heavenly cloud, with her eyes modestly cast down, beneath the Trinity.  She is surrounded by angels holding symbols of the Marian Litany, largely inspired by the Song of Songs: the Sun, the Moon, a Starfish, Roses, Lilies, and the Spotless Mirror.  Beneath this vision, at the lower right, are her parents, Saint Joachim and Saint Anne, who look up in wonder and awe.

In our sheet the figure of Saint Anne is shown kneeling with her arms outstretched and her face radiant with the heavenly light of the vision she beholds.  Our study is a preliminary sketch for the figure, showing her wearing a long mantle tied at the waist, while her hair is tied in a chignon decorated with a small cap. A second drawing for the two figures of Joachim and Anne is in a private collection in Paris.⁴   Drawn with black and red chalk, this study was made later than our drawing and shows the two figures as they appear in the finished painting, without variation. In this drawing, Saint Anne is shown wearing a veil covering her head as in the altarpiece.

The present drawing is highly characteristic of La Fosse’s mastery of the trois-crayons technique, which he employed to accentuate the folds of the subject’s dress, resolve the arrangement of the hair in the subsidiary study above, and define the reflected light of glory on her face.